At PAN M 360, we actually talk with Kiva Stimac, artistic director and co-founder of Suoni Per Il Popolo, 25 years ago during the month of June. And now we’re celebrating this 25th year edition  with a lot of joy and gratitude, because it remains a rich event, year after year. Kiva, her team and a whole community of local /international artists have contributed to  this 25th anniversary schedule that is going to run until June 30th. So, Kiva, congratulations for those 25 years of labor, of love. Approaching the heavy traffic, let’s get on this schedule with plenty of Kiva’s recommendations.

PAN M 360: First, congrats for this huge accomplishment!

Kiva Stimac: Yes, thank you. That’s very appreciated. 

PAN M 360: And we suppose you wanted to celebrate this 25th year your way, because you’ve been the main artistic director for a few years. You’re carrying on your shoulders this great event, and this time I suppose there are some special inputs!

Kiva Stimac: Yes and no. I also see this as really a community effort. Part of what I do is that I bring together all the people who’ve come through the Casa, the Sala, the Suoni over the years. It’s really been an artistic community development, not just here in Montreal, we talk about a global community as well of experimenters and tricksters and people trying to rabble-rouse and shake things up, so I don’t see it as just me doing this on my own. It wouldn’t be possible without the popolo ! 

PAN M 360: Yeah, of course, It’s community labor, but you’re at the top of this little pyramid. You collaborate with a large community. Well, it’s kind of a small international network, but it is still an international network. You built that over the years, and now this international community is there, and also there’s the local one. So, how did you build this edition ?

Kiva Stimac:  I think I really tried to bring in all the voices that have been present over the years, and new voices that are emerging as well, because every year, a new generation of folks come through, and having those young voices and the elder voices and even the children doing their recital is very important to me. Last year, one of the kids at the children’s recital played the piano with her head. So, that there’s 10 year olds excited for this is just as important as Malcolm Goldstein played recently, and he’s almost 90! So, I just love that that whole intergenerational community comes together.

PAN M 360: I totally agree with you, Kiva!  We share those same values at PAN M 360. If you just avoid the elderly, and also if you avoid the youngest, it’s not a good idea for a deep music listening experience. In your case, you don’t avoid anyone and it works!

Kiva Stimac: Well, I’m very hopeful it works this year, but every year I get nervous right before the festival that nobody will come.

PAN M 360: So, let’s try to pinpoint over this month some of the main elements of your program.

Kiva Stimac: Well, I definitely looked to do things in the venues that we started in, but also outside and in the streets. I didn’t get one grant for a big outdoor project, but there are several outdoor projects that are happening this year. One of them is going to be on Saturday 14th in Parc La Fontaine at the rebuilt Théâtre de Verdure. And we’re going to have an all-star lineup of Sam Shalabi Septet, which is a great new project with multiple voices, and really looks at Sam’s solo work through a bigger lens. And Black Ox Orchestra, and Erika Angell and Matana Roberts. So, for Sony, that represents a big swath of our, the creative spirit of our festival, and it’s great for everyone to come and see.  

And then another show that we’re going to have that’s outside is called the Pony Show, and it’s going to happen in Parc Lahaie on June 20th, which is the little park in front of the church right at the corner of Saint-Laurent and Saint-Joseph. And it’s going to involve a pantomime horse race. So, you know, when two people get in a horse costume, and then there’s going to be a race around the park. And then there’ll be  bands:  Hélène Barbier, Scooter J and Psychic Armor. It’ll be more in the  Pop Rock world, very accessible and fun. Yes, I’m really looking forward to that one too. 

And then one of the other outdoor things we’re going to have is called the Funeral March for the Disappeared Venues. So, we’re going to meet at Jeanne-Mance Park, and with a group of musicians and activists, we’re going to walk through the neighborhood at different stops, playing music, celebrating, and stopping where missing venues around the neighborhood have been, and end up at Produit Rien, a little gallery in Mile X, where there’ll be a sound installation by a Palestinian artist and two local artists called Screaming Out Walls, and then an exhibit of photography called Six Tits in a Twelve Pack. All free !

PAN M 360: So, it’s a big involvement from your organization because you have to finance it without public money.

Kiva  Stimac: Yeah we didn’t get the grant for this whole project, so the community has really come together around this project and that we all actually are doing it together. So, I think that’s important to point out in this time of public funding being scarce and wanted by so many that sometimes we’re going back to our DIY roots. Everything is just a black and white photocopy, no more fancy programs. Scaling back so that the music itself and the art itself can be the main feature.

PAN M 360: Then art never dies because of that. If we don’t adapt to harder areas, we die. And we need the creativity and the arts to move forward in these hard times, for sure.

Kiva Stimac: Exactly. 

PAN M 360: Now, if we go to your traditional venues, Sala, Casa, Sotterenea, etc.. Full of programs full of artists !

Kiva Stimac:  Yes, I’ve tried really hard this year in the curation of the events in one night so that there’s not so much of an overlap of genres necessarily, but that you could walk into each venue and your mind could be blown and it would be something interesting, but they wouldn’t be in competition with each other necessarily. So, there is a groove that flows through all of this music, for sure, that I see, but at the same time, it’s coming from very different places as all of us humans have very different experiences and express our creativity in many different ways. And it’s that beauty of the experimentation and the thoughtfulness that each of these artists brings to their work and the challenge that they bring through their creativity that is very important for this festival.

PAN M 360: Now, we got to pinpoint some very interesting events. I know those are all your babies in a way, it’s hard to select the main ones, but let’s try. 

Kiva Stimac: Well, on June 19th, we’re having a first night at Casa, which is our smallest venue:  Watch That Ends The Night Records présent Quinton Barnes + Jason Doell & Naomi McCarroll-Butler + Liam Cole + Alex ‘Bad Baby’ Lukashevsky. That is a new record label out of Kingston, it is putting on Quentin Barnes’ new ensemble, which is merging hip-hop and free jazz and electronic music, and it’s a showcase for the whole record label, so there’ll be a bunch of other people there. So, that’s a night for sure to come to. And on the same evening, we’re presenting Cabaret Noir, which was a big theater production that went on at Théâtre de Quat’Sous, except we’re getting the music from that show.

So, the show was a huge success and really looks at the swath of the Black experience from Quebec, from North America.

PAN M 360: You are very excited with this June 21st program: Lesbians on Ecstasy + Rough Spells + HRT

Kiva Stimac: That is practically sold out already!  Lesbians on Ecstasy are coming out of their retirement in the past 10 years.  They were a very important band in the early 2000s and that night is going to be fantastic. They will be joined by Rough Spells from Toronto, which is a queer metal band, and HRT, which is one of my favorite bands from Montreal that really looks through the queer lens and brings a very strong presence to the dance floor. 

PAN M 360: There has always been avant-garde improvised music and free jazz. Which is still important at the Suoni this year.

Kiva Stimac: Yes, on June 22nd, we have a fully stacked Canadian jazz night with François Houle’s The Secret Lives of Colour. That includes Gerry Hemingway, Myra Melford, Joelle Léandre, Gordon Grdina, a whole cast of characters who are interpreting François Houle’s piece, The Secret Lives of Colour, and they’re going to be joined by Brass Knuckle Sandwich, which is a duet of two virtuoso players, Nicole Rampersaud and Marilyn Lerner. And this other set is going to be the first opening act that night : Open Thread, which is Peggy Lee‘s quartet with a whole bunch of people. So it’s going to be a packed night!  

And that same night, Meztizx is coming, which is a band based out of Amsterdam now, and they play definitely more Latin-influenced jazz electronica. So it’s going to be a very chill night we can all sway to – Mestizx + Mas Aya + Stefan Christoff & Daniela Solís.

PAN M 360: You’re also doing a live soundtrack , that’s at Sala Rosa on the 24th.

Kiva Stimac: The silent movie is called A Page of Madness. It’s a Japanese silent movie from the 1920s. And this Anju Singh’s project, The Nausea,is the live score to that. So it’s going to be very intense and beautiful -the program is called The Nausea: A Page of Madness + Ritual Purification

PAN M 360: Hotel2Tango is also involved in this great schedule:

Kiva Stimac : Over the 23rd and 24th, there’s a live session of sets you can sit in that are being recorded. It’s going to be all the individual players doing solo sets that’s going to be recorded. So it’s a live recording with an audience with this band from Lebanon that we’re bringing, who’s playing the Sala Rosa on the 21st as a full band called Sanam. That’s a new band on Constellation Records, and they’re going to be playing with Radwan Ghazi Moumneh. On the 23rd and 24th,  that’s going to be also a very beautiful night, two nights as well.

And then Bobby Sanchez and Big Sissy are playing at la Sotterenea on the 24th. Bobby Sanchez is a hip-hop rapper, queer, trans, indigenous from New York City. And Big Sissy is a local icon here, drag performer and singer-songwriter. So that’s going to be an amazing night as well, very political.

Also on the 24th, Farida Amadou is coming from Belgium, who’s my favorite electronic bassist in the world right now. She is unbelievable, and that we get the chance to see her now when she’s starting is very special. 

PAN M 360:  Okay, so let’s keep on the new proposals. So there are other excellent programs to present.

Kiva Stimac: Yes. Our final, well, our final big night is on the 28th, the Saturday, where we’re having a whole bunch of different acts on the same night. Michigan Wolf Eyes and Pulitzer Prize-winner indigenous artist Raven Chacon, just an amazing genius all around, are coming to play in all the different worlds of rock and experimentation. And so what they’re going to come together and do, I have no idea, but I’m sure it will be mind-blowing.

PAN M 360: Suoni were supposed to present them last year and with the great Anthony Braxton. And there was some mortality in the family of Wolf Eyes and the  program has been postponed. And now Wolf eyes are coming back, but not with Mr. Braxton.

Kiva Stimac: No. Mr. Braxton, I don’t think we’ll be playing music live anymore. He’s reached a certain age where it’s probably just not going to happen. But that’s not for me to make public, you know.

Cartel Madras is also coming that same night, who’s a hip-hop sister duo from out west, Alberta. And they’re bringing Indian Giver from Toronto, which is a metal Indigenous band. That night is going to be sick.

The whole building that night will be throbbing with such good energy. And then across the street at the Casa, it’s a whole cast of characters who are Constellation Records adjacent T. Gowdy + Steve Bates & Elizabeth Anka Vajagic + Mat Ball & Ky Brooks + Nennen. So that will be a beautiful post-rock, post-classical night.

And then our final big night is actually on the 30th, on Monday, in a church, Église Sacré-Coeur-de-Jésus. And it’s going to be an organ show, so ambient organ. And the whole church will be vibing.It’s going to be a very beautiful, slow, sweet end to the festival. There is also organ playing in a group called Beast. And she’ll be accompanied by someone on a hurdy-gurdy, which is a stringed bowed instrument with a wheel that makes a very droney, beautiful sound.

PAN M 360: Cool !  So, we have a better idea of what’s going on this month at the Suoni Per Il Popolo. Thank you so much for this presentation which is a (big) fragment of the whole 25th Edition schedule!

Kiva Stimac: Well, it’s a pleasure !